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- Title
Heavy Rainfall Episodes in the Eastern Northeast Brazil Linked to Large-Scale Ocean-Atmosphere Conditions in the Tropical Atlantic.
- Authors
Kouadio, Yves K.; Servain, Jacques; Machado, Luiz A. T.; Lentini, Carlos A. D.
- Abstract
Relationships between simultaneous occurrences of distinctive atmospheric easterly wave (EW) signatures that cross the southequatorial Atlantic, intense mesoscale convective systems (lifespan > 2 hour) that propagate westward over the western southequatorial Atlantic, and subsequent strong rainfall episodes (anomaly > 10mm·day-1) that occur in eastern Northeast Brazil (ENEB) are investigated. Using a simple diagnostic analysis, twelve cases with EW lifespan ranging between 3 and 8 days and a mean velocity of 8m·s-1 were selected and documented during each rainy season of 2004, 2005, and 2006. These cases, which represent 50% of the total number of strong rainfall episodes and 60% of the rainfall amount over the ENEB, were concomitant with an acceleration of the trade winds over the south-equatorial Atlantic, an excess of moisture transported westward from Africa to America, and a strengthening of the convective activity in the oceanic region close to Brazil. Most of these episodes occurred during positive sea surface temperature anomaly patterns over the entire south-equatorial Atlantic and low-frequency warmconditions within the oceanic mixing layer. A real-time monitoring and the simulation of this ocean-atmosphere relationship could help in forecasting such dramatic rainfall events.
- Subjects
TROPICS; ATLANTIC Ocean; NORTHEAST Brazil; RAINFALL; OCEAN temperature; CONVECTION (Meteorology); FORECASTING; TRADE winds
- Publication
Advances in Meteorology, 2012, p1
- ISSN
1687-9309
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1155/2012/369567